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Published in the ‘Demokratisches Wochenblatt’ 1st, 22nd, 29th August and 5th September 1868

If I remember rightly, it was Goethe, who, on his death bed, called for “Light, more light”. Whether a lack of earthly light moved him to this, or, as the pious would perhaps have it, the prospect of heavenly light in the hereafter, the light of knowledge, which the present work has in abundance, has the same effect on me.

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The Marxist writer Moishe Postone, best-known for his 1993 book Time, Labour, and Social Domination, died on 21 March at the age of 75.

He was also well known for his critique of left antisemitism.

Born in Canada, he first studied for a degree in biochemistry at Chicago University, but then moved to studying history. He recalled a big student occupation in 1969, and a reading group on Hegel and Marx which came out of it, as turning-points in his development.

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On 1 March Donald Trump announced tariffs of 25% on steel imports, 10% on aluminium imports.

Other governments are alarmed by this shift towards trade war. The OECD, a consortium of the world’s 35 strongest capitalist economies, has criticised the move. Further argument will come at the meeting of the finance ministers and central bank governments of the G20 (20 strongest countries) in Buenos Aires on 19-20 March.

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In England… permanent combinations have been formed, trades unions, which serve as ramparts for the workers in their struggles with the employers... The organisation of these strikes, combinations, and trades unions went on simultaneously with the political struggles of the workers, who now constitute a large political party, under the name of Chartists.

The first attempt of workers to associate among themselves always takes place in the form of combinations.